2 Samuel 13:23-39

The facts are:

1 . Absalom, holding a sheep shearing festival at Baal-hazor, invites the king and his sons.

2 . The king, declining to go on account of being unnecessarily burdensome, gets rid of Absalom's entreaty, and bestows on him a parting blessing.

3 . After some persuasion, Absalom obtains permission for all the king's sons to accompany him.

4 . During the festivities the servants of Absalom, in obedience to their master, smite Amnon, whereupon all the other of the king's sons flee.

5 . A false report having reached the king that all his sons were slain, he gives vent to his grief in most distressing form, until Jonadab, who was in the secret of the affair, informs him of the actual facts of the case.

6 . Absalom flees, and the rest of the sons return home, and join their father in lamentation over the event.

7 . During Absalom's exile for three years, David, while recovering from his grief over Amnon, was in a mind to go out after him, were it possible.

Home troubles.

The words of the prophet were being swiftly and terribly fulfilled in the experience of the king. His own crimes of adultery and murder by stealth were now bearing retributive fruit in his own family in the form of adultery and murder, with the increment of incest. That these young men acted as free agents and were responsible for their deeds makes no difference to the fact that, in relation to the previous conduct of their father, it was a terrible retribution in the order of providence. God does chastise his people with the human rod. The blessed covenant made with the chosen one was not broken—his soul was delivered from the mouth of destruction ( Psalms 89:33-36 ); but a harvest of evil had to be reaped in the place where the dreadful seed had been sown—in the family. Never, perhaps, has this family trouble been paralleled in the experience of good men; but though its precise features are mercifully exceptional, we may see mirrored in this family trouble elements of evil found in some form or other in other domestic circles.

I. JEALOUSIES AND HATREDS CONSEQUENT ON DEEDS OF WRONG . There were signs of ill feeling in this home sprung from an Oriental harem, before the vile deed of Amnon was perpetrated; but this act developed and intensified whatever feeling of that character was in existence. In the most imperfect and unhappy homes a positive deed of wrong to a member of the family is sure to be resented by some other member whose temperament or sympathies flow in a certain direction. The world does not see the acts of harshness and even cruelty sometimes done within the sphere of home; these acts are the parents of a brood of ill feelings, which rankle and burn, waiting for occasion to vent their force on some marked object of hatred. And as the love of home is the tenderest and sweetest of all loves, so, when it is lost, there rises in its place the bitterest and most irreconcilable of hates. The best wine makes the sourest vinegar.

II. PARENTS CRITICIZED . Reading between the lines of this piece of domestic history, we can see that the past conduct of David was not only known, so far at least as Bathsheba was concerned, but that it had not escaped the critical observation of his sons. How could it? A father's domestic conduct is in open light to his children, and, although natural reverence may sway their bearing toward him, they cannot help making critical observations on anything that undermines the respect due. A really pious son would have wept in solitude over the father's sin, and have tenderly covered his shame; but the base tendencies of such young men as Amnon, and the pride of an Absalom, would only have given keenness to the critical spirit. It is a sad prophecy of trouble when children begin to criticize a parent's conduct, and it is moral ruin in a home when a father does deeds which his children, even with their slight knowledge of things, cannot but deplore. Once break down respect for moral conduct, and the home is open to the invasion of numberless ills.

III. PARENTS ' APPREHENSION . There is always some room for apprehension in connection with domestic life; for the powers of evil are active, and the best guarded home may be occasionally invaded from without by a foul spirit. But, as a rule, where prudence in management is combined with correctness of conduct and a spirit of true practical godliness, confidence is in the ascendant. The blessing of God is on the abode of the faithful. In David's house at this time, consequent on the influence of his recent sin and the crime of Amnon, there was evident fear in the father's heart ( 2 Samuel 13:26 , 2 Samuel 13:27 ). He had secret reasons for not going or wishing Amnon to go to the feast. Fears of business failures, and of possible changes in domestic material comforts, are common and not to be altogether avoided, yet they may carry with them no secret sting; but anticipations of possible moral disasters and complications in the home life are of all things most fearful burdens to bear, and their gravity is the greater when they are felt to be connected with one's own misconduct. Fathers and mothers should take care that they lay no foundation for painful apprehensions concerning the conduct of their children in deeds of their own performance.

IV. DEVELOPMENTS OF SUPPRESSED ANIMOSITIES . The spirit of David was evidently troubled by observing the strained relations between his sons Amnon and Absalom. The probability is that they were not on terms of familiarity, and seldom visited each other. The ill feeling created by the ruin of his sister had been secretly but steadily cherished for two years, and the treasured revenge at last broke forth in the murder at the festival of sheep shearing. It is the pain of a father still sometimes to witness the development in violent and distressing forms of passions which he either, through loss of personal influence, could not or would not seek to remove or tone down. The first part of the prophet's prediction had now been fulfilled two years; the other part was on its way, and only awaited the maturity of the forces that were being secretly gathered. When domestic troubles, having a root in moral evil, begin in a home, it is hard to say how long it will be before the powers of evil assume a portentous development. David was fearful, but he scarcely looked for such an issue of a family festival. Literally, in this, as in other cases, sin when it is finished brought forth death ( James 1:15 ). The harvest came after the sowing and germinating of the seed.

V. A FATHER 'S DEEDS THE JUSTIFICATION OF EVIL . The bitterest element in David's domestic trouble was not simply the death of an incestuous son, sad as the death of a firstborn always is, but the knowledge that his own conduct was, in the mind of Absalom, the justification of the murder. Absalom seems to have reasoned thus: "Amnon has done a guilty deed worthy of death; no severe punishment has been inflicted on him by my father, perhaps because of his own previous adultery with Bathsheba, or because this is his firstborn; shame has been brought by this crime on the entire family as the brother of the disgraced and ruined woman, I am her legitimate avenger in the failure of law; and as the injury has been an open one in the centre of the family life, the doom shall be open, in the presence, if possible, of father and brothers." If David was the man of discernment now as formerly, he could scarcely have failed to see that there was something like this current of thought in the mind of his son Absalom, and that it formed a specious justification of his daring deed. Rightly or wrongly, some do reason in defence of their rash and evil deeds, and it is the most serious element of the domestic trouble when the foundation of their reasoning is found in the deeds or neglect of their parents. The devil encourages those who do wrong to get all possible support from the actions of those professing to be good.

VI. A FOMENTER OF MISCHIEF AND EVIL . One of the troubles in David's homo life was the presence of an influential double-faced man, who, being in the secrets, entered as adviser into the schemes of some of the family, and was instrumental in promoting incest, and then, on his own showing, knew that it was a settled thing to murder the incestuous man ( 2 Samuel 13:3-5 ; cf. 2 Samuel 13:32 , 2 Samuel 13:33 ). This cunning man, who had not the courage or honesty to tell David of the design of Absalom, was a moral plague in David's family connection. It is an instance of how much evil may come to a home by cultivating the friendship and intimacy of unprincipled or cowardly relatives. Alas! for the home (and there are such in our country) that is invaded by the pestilential influence of men who trample under their feet chastity, love, and, if need be, life itself! There are vipers and dragons in the world still ( Matthew 3:7 ; cf. Psalms 91:13 ).

GENERAL LESSONS .

1 . We see the wonderful contrast in domestic life where piety is maintained in unfading beauty. Instead of jealousies and hatreds, parents blamed by sons and full of fear, evil feelings maturing into developed deeds of violence and cruelty, justified by reference to parental conduct, and stimulated or connived at by base friends, we shall see love and consideration, reverence for parents, confidence in children, generous sentiments ripening into holy deeds, encouragement for kind actions found in parental example, and friendships formed conducive to peace and harmony.

2 . We learn the danger of deliberately nourishing feelings of revenge even when wrong has been done. It is for God to vindicate his own justice ( Romans 12:9 ). Just sentiments of anger may, unless guard be kept over them, burn into more questionable forms.

3 . The festive scenes of wicked men should be avoided, because of the evil communications which corrupt good manners, and the possible incidental evils arising therefrom.

4 . When men are known to be proud and imperious and revengeful, they are likely to be credited with more evil than they have really done ( 2 Samuel 13:30 ); hence avoid such a spirit.

5 . It is a shame to a man to be in the secrets of those intent on evil ( 2 Samuel 13:3-5 ; cf. 2 Samuel 13:32 ); and, though such may escape punishment in human society, God will visit their sins on their own head.

6 . Rulers and parents who show an unwise partiality ( 2 Samuel 13:21 , 2 Samuel 13:22 ) in not adequately chastising evil doers, only defer the day of trouble and increase its sorrows ( 2 Samuel 13:36 ).

Lost and exiled.

The closing verses of this chapter are very obscure in their construction and meaning. The sense most probable, and which we here proceed upon, is that Absalom's asylum with the King of Geshur was a reason why David did not follow after him with a view to his apprehension and chastisement, and that while at first he mourned for Amnon every day, he was in process of time able to bear up under his loss. The calamity brought on by his own sins ( 2 Samuel 12:9-12 ) had now culminated in one son lost and another in exile.

I. THERE IS A NATURAL PROGRESSION IN THE TROUBLES CONSEQUENT ON SIN . The first temporal human trouble attendant on David's sin was dislike and aversion of his other wives, and this small beginning was followed by his being put under the power of Joab ( 2 Samuel 11:6 , 2 Samuel 11:18-21 ), his exposure to others, the incest of his children, the loss of influence by refraining from duty ( 2 Samuel 13:21 , 2 Samuel 13:22 ), and now it came to a climax in the firstborn being in his grave, and the second son being banished as an exile. It is an evil and a bitter thing to sin against God, the more so according to the station and privileges of the sinner. A firstborn lost! A young man cut down with, so far as we can see, the vilest sins unforgiven on his head! The flower of the family, the man of spirit, and avenger in daring way of a sister's wrong, in a foreign land, finding refuge from a father's wrath with the heathen! Fathers and mothers, lead the lesson well, and seek for grace to be in the home pure and wise and loving, like unto the holy Saviour.

II. THERE IS SHEER HELPLESSNESS IN FACE OF THE ACCUMULATED CALAMITIES CONSEQUENT ON SIN . David could only mourn over the lost one. And what bitterness in the mourning! The dire chain of moral causes ending in that wretched death could not be broken; for an inscrutable and just Providence had welded them to the first adulterous link of his own manufacture. Whatever anger was cherished against the brother assassin, and whatever desire to vindicate the law against him, policy and other considerations prevented his going out after him to drag him from the asylum afforded by another king. It was a time of correction in righteousness when the hitter but wholesome lessons of his life were to be taken to heart. It is fortunate if men, having by a succession of faults and sins brought themselves face to face with hard unalterable facts, apply their hearts with all earnestness to God for his sanctifying grace.

III. THE DISCHARGE OF THE DUTIES OF LIFE BECOMES INCREASINGLY DIFFICULT WHEN THE JOYS OF HOME LIFE ARE DESTROYED . Though dwelling in distinct abodes in Jerusalem, the royal family had a common home life, and, under hallowed influences, this might have been to David a source of strength in the administration of affairs. Now, however, the joy of his heart was gone. Energy was spent in sorrowful memories and thoughts concerning the possible future efforts of the ambitious and now reckless exile, which otherwise would have gone in the direction of cheerful daily work for the nation. Fears of yet further troubles, and passionate desire to remove the public reproach of letting crime in his house go by default, were not helpful to calm effort for public good. Many a man loses energy for business consequent on the loss of domestic joys. Home is the proper place for weary men to find refreshment after toil, and cheer for new endeavours. We may truly pity the man whose domestic troubles come in such form as to impair his strength for the battle of life. If he has not the grace of God in his heart, it is not surprising if he yields to temptation and seeks relief in sinful pleasures.

HOMILIES BY B. DALE